Churchill refused to negotiate. After a certain point, he was culpable for what happened to his people.
Now, Petain, in France, DID negotiate. His people ended up hating him for it.
Didn’t Churchill lose the 45’ election?
What was there to negotiate with a man who was repeatedly telling people he planned to start WW2, and that all attempts to negotiate with him would be used and abused to benefit his campaign of recreating a German empire? A man who would go on to make a deal with the Soviets against western nations, agreeing to divide Europe in half with Joseph Stalin?
The UK lost nearly twice as many people in WWII as France; I think that was Petain’s goal (after witnessing the staggering French losses of WWI firsthand). FWIW, Churchill inherited WWII.